by Michael Antoniades, Balmoral Park racing analyst

Crete, IL — The USTA Strategic Wagering Program and Balmoral Park have combined to announce an instant guaranteed pool of $100,000 on the 50 cent Balmoral Pick-5 this Wednesday night (Feb. 22).

Making this possible is a carryover of $29,672 which will be added to the pool. We estimate a final Pick-5 pool of $135,000. The action starts early with a seven horse field on race two, the opening leg of the Pick 5-wager. Post time for the start of the Pick-5 is 7:30 p.m. (CST).

The 50 cent Pick-5 has been growing in popularity. The 50 cent minimum allows players to make twice as many wagers or wager half as much on their original ticket as they could with a dollar minimum. This opens the door for smaller bankrolls to play. A ticket with two horses a race costs just $16.

This past Thursday at the Meadowlands a similar carryover of $27,470 was offered and players responded with $164,344 on Thursday to make the final Pick-5 pool $191,814.

The largest Pick-5 pool in Balmoral Park history was on April 22, 2009. A total of $218,384 was wagered, chasing a carryover of $56,739, to make the final pool $275,123. The winning players received $18,192.70 for 50 cents.

The largest Pick-5 payout in Balmoral Park history happened just three weeks ago. On Feb. 1, the winning combination of 8-7-1-4-1 returned $32,489.00 on a 50 cent wager.

Balmoral offers guaranteed Pick-4 pools every night and the Wednesday guarantee of $15,000 swings into action immediately following the Pick-5 wager. The Pick-4 is offered on the final four races, starting on race seven this Wednesday evening. The average 2012 payout is $2,653 for a buck. The takeout is only 15 percent and the Pick-4 has a minimum bet of one dollar. The final race of the night and the final leg of the Pick-4 at Balmoral will offer the 10 cent High 5 with an average payout of more than $1,800 for a dime.

Balmoral Park handle has continued to grow in February. A total of $8,814,987 has been wagered on the eight February programs, producing a nightly average of $1,101,873. The average wagered on the 89 races offered in February is $99,044.

An average of 11 races per card means it takes less time to handicap the card, which has attracted new players.

Winter racing has been so competitive that the percentage of winning favorites in 2012 is currently at 31.49 percent, the lowest in the nation, lower than almost every Thoroughbred track and similar to the percentages of Sportsmans Park in the 1970s and 1980s.

Serious players across North America can get a head start on their handicapping with free 12 line program pages for races 2 through 10 right now courtesy of Track Master and the USTA by clicking on this link.